It’s time to go, Hewson tells Costello

Thank God that John hewson has the guts to say what most people are thinking – Pete, it’s time to bugger off mate! You had your chance and you blew it. And you really were a second-rate treasurer. Oh, and your book sucked, too.

“After the damage that you have done, the best you can now do to help our chances is to leave,” Dr Hewson wrote in Fairfax newspapers.

“If your few remaining mates won’t tell you, I will. You’ve had a fair go. If you now won’t give others a chance and pull your weight as a member of the team, you should move on.

“It is most unlikely that you will ever be drafted as leader of the Liberal Party and even less likely that you will ever be prime minister.

“You can’t go on ignoring the facts. You have only ever had a minimal support base and that base has been further and terminally eroded by your disloyalty, antics and shenanigans of the last year or so.

Dr Hewson also doubted Mr Costello’s competence as treasurer.

“I also doubt you have the skills, experience or self-confidence to have accepted the obvious job after losing the last election, namely shadow treasurer,” he wrote.

“You’d be lost without Treasury. You may have delivered 11 budgets but ask yourself honestly how many of them were actually yours, rather than Treasury’s.

“I am told Treasury is now drawing a sharp contrast between your little interest and involvement and that of Wayne Swan.”

Dr Hewson, who lost the 1993 federal election against former prime minister Paul Keating, is also scathing of Mr Costello’s book, released last year.

“You should also recognise that your indulgent ‘memoirs’, released recently, did not provide the platform from which you had obviously hoped to be drafted,” he said.

“They were received with a yawn. They were being sold at a discount in my local bookstore in just a few days.

“But, most importantly, they fuelled yet another round of leadership speculation, again making the Opposition the focus of exhaustive and sustained media attention, leaving the Government to skate by without scrutiny.

Dr Hewson says he thinks an election is looming.

“Despite what the Government says, the risk and opportunity of an election this year are very real, especially if my worst fears of our economy tanking are confirmed,” he said.”